I will now give you the particulars of a conversation that has just
passed between Mr. Lovelace and me, which I must call agreeable.
It began with his telling me, that he had just received intelligence
that my friends were on a sudden come to a resolution to lay aside all
thoughts of pursuing me, or of getting me back: and that therefore he
attended me to know of my pleasure; and what I would do, or have him do?
I told him, that I would have him leave me directly; and that, when it
was known to every body that I was absolutely independent of him, it
would pass, that I had left my father's house because of my brother's
ill usage of me: which was a plea that I might make with justice, and to
the excuse of my father, as well as of myself.
He mildly replied, that if we could be certain that my relations would
adhere to this their new resolution, he could have no objection, since
such was my pleasure; but, as he was well assured that they had taken it
only from apprehensions, that a more active one might involve my brother
(who had breathed nothing but revenge) in some fatal misfortune, there
was too much reason to believe that they would resume their former
purpose the moment they should think they safely might.
This, Madam, said he, is a risque I cannot run. You would think it
strange if I could. And yet, as soon as I knew they had so given out, I
thought it proper to apprize you of it, and take your commands upon it.
Let me hear, said I, (willing to try if he had any particular view,)
what you think most advisable?
'Tis very easy to say that, if I durst--if I might not offend you--if it
were not to break conditions that shall be inviolable with me.
Say then, Sir, what you would say. I can approve or disapprove, as I
think fit.
Had not the man a fine opportunity here to speak out?--He had. And thus
he used it.
To wave, Madam, what I would say till I have more courage to speak
out [More courage,--Mr. Lovelace more courage, my dear!]--I will only
propose what I think will be most agreeable to you--suppose, if you
choose not to go to Lady Betty's, that you take a turn cross the country
to Windsor?
Why to Windsor?
Because it is a pleasant place: because it lies in the way either to
Berkshire, to Oxford, or to London: Berkshire, where Lord M. is at
present: Oxford, in the neighbourhood of which lives Lady Betty: London,
whither you may retire at your pleasure: or, if you will have it so,
whither I may go, you staying at Windsor; and yet be within an easy
distance of you, if any thing should happen, or if your friends should
change their new-taken resolution.
This proposal, however, displeased me not. But I said, my only objection
was, the distance of Windsor from Miss Howe, of whom I should be glad to
be always within two or three hours reach of by messenger, if possible.
If I had thoughts of any other place than Windsor, or nearer to
Miss Howe, he wanted but my commands, and would seek for proper
accommodations: but, fix as I pleased, farther or nearer, he had
servants, and they had nothing else to do but to obey me.
A grateful thing then he named to me--To send for my Hannah, as soon as
I shall be fixed;* unless I would choose one of the young gentlewomen
here to attend me; both of whom, as I had acknowledged, were very
obliging; and he knew I had generosity enough to make it worth their
while.
* See his reasons for proposing Windsor, Letter XXV.--and her Hannah,
Letter XXVI.
This of Hannah, he might see, I took very well. I said I had thoughts
of sending for her, as soon as I got to more convenient lodgings. As to
these young gentlewomen, it were pity to break in upon that usefulness
which the whole family were of to each other; each having her proper
part, and performing it with an agreeable alacrity: insomuch, that I
liked them all so well, that I could even pass my days among them, were
he to leave me; by which means the lodgings would be more convenient to
me than now they were.
He need not repeat his objections to this place, he said: but as to
going to Windsor, or wherever else I thought fit, or as to his personal
attendance, or leaving me, he would assure me (he very agreeably said)
that I could propose nothing in which I thought my reputation, and even
my punctilio, concerned, that he would not cheerfully come into. And
since I was so much taken up with my pen, he would instantly order his
horse to be got ready, and would set out.
Not to be off my caution. Have you any acquaintance at Windsor? said
I.--Know you of any convenient lodgings there?
Except the forest, replied he, where I have often hunted, I know the
least of Windsor of any place so noted and so pleasant. Indeed I have
not a single acquaintance there.
Upon the whole, I told him, that I thought his proposal of Windsor, not
amiss; and that I would remove thither, if I could get a lodging only
for myself, and an upper chamber for Hannah; for that my stock of money
was but small, as was easy to be conceived and I should be very loth to
be obliged to any body. I added, that the sooner I removed the better;
for that then he could have no objection to go to London, or Berkshire,
as he pleased: and I should let every body know my independence.
He again proposed himself, in very polite terms, for my banker. But I,
as civilly, declined his offer.
This conversation was to be, all of it, in the main, agreeable. He asked
whether I would choose to lodge in the town of Windsor, or out of it?
As near the castle, I said, as possible, for the convenience of going
constantly to the public worship; an opportunity I had been very long
deprived of.
He should be very glad, he told me, if he could procure me
accommodations in any one of the canon's houses; which he imagined would
be more agreeable to me than any other, on many accounts. And as he
could depend upon my promise, Never to have any other man but himself,
on the condition to which he had so cheerfully subscribed, he should be
easy; since it was now his part, in earnest, to set about recommending
himself to my favour, by the only way he knew it would be done. Adding,
with a very serious air--I am but a young man, Madam; but I have run a
long course: let not your purity of mind incline you to despise me for
the acknowledgement. It is high time to be weary of it, and to reform;
since, like Solomon, I can say, There is nothing new under the sun: but
that it is my belief, that a life of virtue can afford such pleasures,
on reflection, as will be for ever blooming, for ever new!
I was agreeably surprised. I looked at him, I believe, as if I doubted
my ears and my eyes. His aspect however became his words.
I expressed my satisfaction in terms so agreeable to him, that he said,
he found a delight in this early dawning of a better day to him, and in
my approbation, which he had never received from the success of the most
favoured of his pursuits.
Surely, my dear, the man must be in earnest. He could not have said
this; he could not have thought it, had he not. What followed made me
still readier to believe him.
In the midst of my wild vagaries, said he, I have ever preserved a
reverence for religion, and for religious men. I always called another
cause, when any of my libertine companions, in pursuance of Lord
Shaftesbury's test (which is a part of the rake's creed, and what I
may call the whetstone of infidelity,) endeavoured to turn the sacred
subject into ridicule. On this very account I have been called by good
men of the clergy, who nevertheless would have it that I was a practical
rake, the decent rake: and indeed I had too much pride in my shame, to
disown the name of rake.
This, Madam, I am the readier to confess, as it may give you hope, that
the generous task of my reformation, which I flatter myself you will
have the goodness to undertake, will not be so difficult a one as you
may have imagined; for it has afforded me some pleasure in my retired
hours, when a temporary remorse has struck me for any thing I have done
amiss, that I should one day delight in another course of life: for,
unless we can, I dare say, no durable good is to be expected from the
endeavour. Your example, Madam, must do all, must confirm all.*
* That he proposes one day to reform, and that he has sometimes good
motions, see Vol.I. Letter XXXIV.
The divine grace, or favour, Mr. Lovelace, must do all, and confirm
all. You know not how much you please me, that I can talk to you in this
dialect.
And I then thought of his generosity to his pretty rustic; and of his
kindness to his tenants.
Yet, Madam, be pleased to remember one thing; reformation cannot be a
sudden work. I have infinite vivacity: it is that which runs away with
me. Judge, dearest Madam, by what I am going to confess, that I have
a prodigious way to journey on, before a good person will think me
tolerable; since though I have read in some of our perfectionists enough
to make a better man than myself either run into madness or despair
about the grace you mention, yet I cannot enter into the meaning of the
word, nor into the modus of its operation. Let me not then be checked,
when I mention your example for my visible reliance; and instead of
using such words, till I can better understand them, suppose all the
rest included in the profession of that reliance.
I told him, that, although I was somewhat concerned at his expression,
and surprised at so much darkness, as (for want of another word) I would
call it, in a man of his talents and learning, yet I was pleased with
his ingenuousness. I wished him to encourage this way of thinking. I
told him, that his observation, that no durable good was to be expected
from any new course, where there was not a delight taken in it, was just;
but that the delight would follow by use.
And twenty things of this sort I even preached to him; taking care,
however, not to be tedious, nor to let my expanded heart give him a
contracted or impatient blow. And, indeed, he took visible pleasure in
what I said, and even hung upon the subject, when I, to try him, once
or twice, seemed ready to drop it: and proceeded to give me a most
agreeable instance, that he could at times think both deeply and
seriously.--Thus it was.
He was once, he said, dangerously wounded in a duel, in the left arm,
baring it, to shew me the scar: that this (notwithstanding a great
effusion of blood, it being upon an artery) was followed by a violent
fever, which at last fixed upon his spirits; and that so obstinately,
that neither did he desire life, nor his friends expect it: that, for a
month together, his heart, as he thought, was so totally changed, that
he despised his former courses, and particularly that rashness which had
brought him to the state he was in, and his antagonist (who, however,
was the aggressor) into a much worse: that in this space he had thought
which at times still gave him pleasure to reflect upon: and although
these promising prospects changed, as he recovered health and spirits,
yet he parted with them with so much reluctance, that he could not help
shewing it in a copy of verses, truly blank ones, he said; some of which
he repeated, and (advantaged by the grace which he gives to every thing
he repeats) I thought them very tolerable ones; the sentiments, however,
much graver than I expected from him.
He has promised me a copy of the lines; and then I shall judge better
of their merit; and so shall you. The tendency of them was, 'That, since
sickness only gave him a proper train of thinking, and that his restored
health brought with it a return to his evil habits, he was ready to
renounce those gifts of nature for those of contemplation.'
He farther declared, that although these good motions went off (as
he had owned) on his recovery, yet he had better hopes now, from
the influence of my example, and from the reward before him, if he
persevered: and that he was the more hopeful that he should, as his
present resolution was made in a full tide of health and spirits; and
when he had nothing to wish for but perseverance, to entitle himself to
my favour.
I will not throw cold water, Mr. Lovelace, said I, on a rising flame:
but look to it! for I shall endeavour to keep you up to this spirit. I
shall measure your value of me by this test: and I would have you bear
those charming lines of Mr. Rowe for ever in your mind; you, who have,
by your own confession, so much to repent of; and as the scar, indeed,
you shewed me, will, in one instance, remind you to your dying day.
The lines, my dear, are from the poet's Ulysses; you have heard me often
admire them; and I repeated them to him:
Habitual evils change not on a sudden:
But many days must pass, and many sorrows;
Conscious remorse and anguish must be felt,
To curb desire, to break the stubborn will,
And work a second nature in the soul,
Ere Virtue can resume the place she lost:
'Tis else dissimulation--
He had often read these lines, he said; but never tasted them
before.--By his soul, (the unmortified creature swore,) and as he hoped
to be saved, he was now in earnest in his good resolutions. He had said,
before I repeated those lines from Rowe, that habitual evils could
not be changed on a sudden: but he hoped he should not be thought a
dissembler, if he were not enabled to hold his good purposes; since
ingratitude and dissimulation were vices that of all others he abhorred.
May you ever abhor them, said I. They are the most odious of all vices.
I hope, my dear Miss Howe, I shall not have occasion, in my future
letters, to contradict these promising appearances. Should I have
nothing on his side to combat with, I shall be very far from being
happy, from the sense of my fault, and the indignation of all my
relations. So shall not fail of condign punishment for it, from my
inward remorse on account of my forfeited character. But the least ray
of hope could not dart in upon me, without my being willing to lay hold
of the very first opportunity to communicate it to you, who take so
generous a share in all my concerns.
Nevertheless, you may depend upon it, my dear, that these agreeable
assurances, and hopes of his begun reformation, shall not make me forget
my caution. Not that I think, at worst, any more than you, that he dare
to harbour a thought injurious to my honour: but he is very various,
and there is an apparent, and even an acknowledged unfixedness in his
temper, which at times gives me uneasiness. I am resolved therefore to
keep him at a distance from my person and my thoughts, as much as I can:
for whether all men are or are not encroachers, I am sure Mr. Lovelace
is one.
Hence it is that I have always cast about, and will continue to cast
about, what ends he may have in view from this proposal, or from that
report. In a word, though hopeful of the best, I will always be fearful
of the worst, in every thing that admits of doubt. For it is better, in
such a situation as mine, to apprehend without cause, than to subject
myself to surprise for want of forethought.
Mr. Lovelace is gone to Windsor, having left two servants to attend me.
He purposes to be back to-morrow.
I have written to my aunt Hervey, to supplicate her interest in my
behalf, for my clothes, books, and money; signifying to her, 'That, if I
may be restored to the favour of my family, and allowed a negative only,
as to any man who may be proposed to me, and be used like a daughter,
a niece, and a sister, I will stand by my offer to live single,
and submit, as I ought, to a negative from my father.' Intimating,
nevertheless, 'That it were perhaps better, after the usage I have
received from my brother and sister, that I may be allowed to be distant
from them, as well for their sakes as for my own,' (meaning, as I
suppose it will be taken, at my Dairy-house)--offering, 'to take my
father's directions as to the manner I shall live in, the servants I
shall have, and in every thing that shall shew the dutiful subordination
to which I am willing to conform.'
My aunt will know by my letter to my sister how to direct to me, if she
be permitted to favour me with a line.
I am equally earnest with her in this letter, as I was with my sister
in that I wrote to her, to obtain for me a speedy reconciliation, that I
not be further precipitated; intimating, 'That, by a timely lenity, all
may pass for a misunderstanding only, which, otherwise, will be thought
equally disgraceful to them, and to me; appealing to her for the
necessity I was under to do what I did.'--
Had I owned that I was overreached, and forced away against my
intention, might they not, as a proof of the truth of my assertion, have
insisted upon my immediate return to them? And, if I did not return,
would they not have reason to suppose, that I had now altered my mind
(if such were my mind) or had not the power to return?--Then were I
to have gone back, must it not have been upon their own terms? No
conditioning with a father! is a maxim with my father, and with my
uncles. If I would have gone, Mr. Lovelace would have opposed it. So I
must have been under his controul, or have run away from him, as it is
supposed I did to him, from Harlowe-place. In what a giddy light would
this have made me appear!--Had he constrained me, could I have
appealed to my friends for their protection, without risking the very
consequences, to prevent which (setting up myself presumptuously, as a
middle person between flaming spirits,) I have run into such terrible
inconveniencies.
But, after all, must it not give me great anguish of mind, to be forced
to sanctify, as I may say, by my seeming after-approbation, a measure
I was so artfully tricked into, and which I was so much resolved not to
take?